November has arrived! Many are making plans to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. Some are chronicling their daily thankfulness on Facebook. Others have already begun decorating for Christmas. However, I can’t help but think that November marks the beginning of deer hunting season. During my childhood, I spent many Novembers and Decembers on a hunting lease with my dad. We would spend parts of Thanksgiving or Christmas break hunting in west Texas or in the hill country of central Texas. My earliest memories include wilderness adventures on cactus filled terrain, the job of watching for that white flag of a tail, and the “call of nature” in the bitter cold. By the age of twelve, I had shot my first buck! Deer hunting was such a normative part of my life that, when in kindergarten my teacher asked me to name the four seasons, I responded, “Deer season, dove season, … squirrel season … and umm.” So, this week I found myself thinking, “It’s deer season.”

Hunting was a major priority in my dad’s life. He loved God. He loved his family. He loved hunting. Inevitably, Dad would miss several Sundays at church to prepare the lease and then hunt. One Sunday Dad’s pastor preached on priorities and putting God first. Hunting was never mentioned, but after church that morning, Dad was honest enough with himself to confess to my mom, “I’m not going to hunt on Sundays anymore.” From that day on, Sundays were reserved for church.

Let me tell two important facts about my dad and hunting: One, Dad always saw deer when he hunted. Two, if he shot, he didn’t miss. Yet that first year after Dad committed to being in church every Sunday during hunting season, dad didn’t see one deer. Rather than God blessing his commitment to church, God went a different direction. The next year was the same—Dad didn’t see anything. He changed leases the following year and, although everyone else saw and even shot deer, my dad did not. Year four came. No deer. Year five Dad couldn’t believe he wasn’t even seeing deer, and he believed he knew why. God wasn’t letting him. Year six came and went. Dad didn’t even go hunting. During the seventh year of Dad’s commitment to make God a priority rather than hunting, dad actually saw a deer, shot, and MISSED! He never missed. Then came year eight. Dad hunted. Dad shot. Dad hit. The seven-year deer draught had ended!

During that forced fast from shooting a deer, Dad got a taste of something else that was far more desirable. For those seven years, Dad poured himself into God’s Word like never before. He didn’t miss a Sunday of church and grew in depth with God even though his antler collection ceased to grow. Dad discovered lasting contentment. Deer hunting had been an idol, but now, through this seven year process, Dad had removed his hunting idol and put God on his rightful throne. 

God not only reset my dad’s priorities, he did one better. God became more intimate to Dad. He told Mom, “God did this for me! God worked to meet a very personal need in me.” This was profound for my dad to understand—God, in a very personal way for seven years, worked to draw Dad into a deeper relationship with him. Dad wasn’t a face in a crowd. He was known by God, and God wanted Dad to love and know Him in a similar way. As  my dad experienced God’s loving relentless pursuit of more of him, he fell in love with God, his savior, like never before. 

My dad’s story began with a sermon on priorities, but ended in an intimate relationship with his God. This deer season I’m praying God does for me what he did for my dad. I need to examine my priorities to see if there is something I’m struggling to make happen that God is actually trying to pull away from me—some unbeknownst idol I’m clinging on to. I need to want what God wants me to want—a greater investment in my relationship with God which yields deeper intimacy with him. 

Scriptures that came to mind as I remembered this story:

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. (Matthew 6:33)

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him: “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” (Matthew 22:34-40)

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. 12 Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:7-12)

1 As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so I long for you, God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God.
When can I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night,
while all day long people say to me,
“Where is your God?”
4 I remember this as I pour out my heart:
how I walked with many,
leading the festive procession to the house of God,
with joyful and thankful shouts.
5 Why, my soul, are you so dejected?
Why are you in such turmoil?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him,
my Savior and my God.
6 I am deeply depressed;
therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan
and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your billows have swept over me.
8 The Lord will send his faithful love by day;
his song will be with me in the night—
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will say to God, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about in sorrow
because of the enemy’s oppression?”
10 My adversaries taunt me,
as if crushing my bones,
while all day long they say to me,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why, my soul, are you so dejected?
Why are you in such turmoil?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him,
my Savior and my God. (Psalm 42)